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Best Japanese Dramas of 2020

Written by YumCha! Editorial Team Tell a Friend

Our editors' picks for the ten best Japanese dramas of 2020!

Aibou 19

Aibou 18-19
How good does a drama have to be to run for 20 years and 19 seasons with the same lead actor? Aibou good. In a year when nothing seemed to be the same anymore, Aibou has been a reliable old friend, arriving like clockwork with another quality new season of crime investigation and police station politics. Whether it's Season 18 that accompanied us at the start of the year, or the currently airing Season 19 that will carry us to the next year, the brainy buddy cop series just never gets old. The evergreen Mizutani Yutaka and Sorimachi Takashi return as crime-fighting partners of the Special Missions Unit, and this pairing, now in their fifth year together, is serving up prime bantering chemistry. These new seasons rank among the franchise's best in terms of production values, and the stories inject new twists and variations into the familiar formula, whether it's the amusing image of our Aibou team trying to investigate in a VR world or the addition of Shinohara Yukiko for some female perspective in the station.

Dangerous Venus
Higashino Keigo's 2016 novel Kiken na Venus gets a ten-episode adaptation directed by veteran hitmakers Sato Yuichi and Kono Keita. Tsumabuki Satoshi is charmingly affable as a veterinarian who suddenly gets a visit from his missing half-brother's self-proclaimed wife, played by Yoshitaka Yuriko. With his brother presumably kidnapped, he is forced to return to the mansion of his estranged dying stepfather and engage with shifty relatives over the family inheritance, opening a Pandora's box of lies, secrets and possibly murders. This mystery may be one of Higashino's lesser works, but you can still bet on plenty of twists, turns and emotional reveals. The suspense has a classic whodunnit atmosphere – though for much of the time, the "it" is as unclear as the "who." Notably, the series has an unexpectedly playful tone, thanks to an earnest, self-aware hero who has a habit of daydreaming romantic moments that definitely won't happen.

Hanzawa Naoki
Hanzawa Naoki is back, and he's still ever ready to fight the bank he works for! The blockbuster series based on Ikeido Jun's novel set ratings records back in 2013, and this sequel, though less magical than the first season, very much lives up to anticipation. Sakai Masato returns to cry foul on corporate and political shenanigans as crafty yet principled banker Hanzawa Naoki. While working at a subsidiary, he takes on the central branch over the hostile takeover of an IT company. While assessing the restructuring of an airline, he breaks rank and refuses to relinquish authority to the government. Like the first series, the sequel is filled with intense speeches, sneering arguments, calculated maneuvers and fist-pumping victories against the man that get you all riled up as Hanzawa chews scenery with old foes, including Kagawa Teruyuki and Kataoka Ainosuke. Just as much climactic yelling as the first series, plus some kendo.

I'm Gonna Die Very Soon Anyway
78 is just a number for fashionable septuagenarian Shinobu Hana (Mita Yoshiko), who is proudly living her best ordinary life. Her world is shaken when her husband suddenly passes away. Even more shocking, she learns during the will reading that her loving partner had kept another family for decades. Midnight Diner director Matsuoka Joji brings his warm and wise touch to this five-episode series based on the novel Sugu Shinun Dakara by Uchidate Makiko. Through Hana and her family's process of grieving while navigating their feelings of confusion, betrayal and anger, the story paints a very human portrait of the love, flaws and resilience of family. While addressing the inevitability of death and loss, the drama sends an affirming message about coming to terms with yourself and refreshing your life at any age.

Karera wo Mireba Wakarukoto
If there's anything you can know just by looking at this drama, it's that it has a great cast. Directed by Fukagawa Yoshihiro, the WOWOW series follows three married couples who live in the same apartment building and suddenly encounter some unexpected drama. Newlyweds Yosuke (Nagano Hiroshi) and Rumi (Oshima Yuko) move into a new home, only to learn that one of their neighbors is Yosuke's ex-wife, manga writer Momoko (Nakayama Miho). What's more, Momoko and her husband Kaito (Namase Katsuhisa) have a son who is actually Yosuke's son, though neither of them know this. Meanwhile, Mizuki (Kimura Tae), who is in a dry marriage with househusband Ichita (Kamiji Yusuke), has an affair with a younger colleague. This relationship drama dishes out juicy material, but it actually refrains from overblown writing and histrionics, instead letting characters handle things in surprisingly mature and direct manner as secrets hit the ceiling fan.

Kotaki Kyodai to Shikuhakku
This TV Tokyo slice-of-life series is wryly funny yet incredibly soft and gentle, just like the eponymous brothers at the heart of the story. Furutachi Kanji and Takito Kenichi play Ichiro and Jiro, a pair of middle-aged unemployed brothers who meet up again after years of estrangement. They encounter Kudo Kankuro by chance, and become "rental uncles" for his agency. Who would want to rent the time of two geezers? More people than you'd think. For a reasonable hourly wage, they pose as relatives at a wedding, provide company to an ill woman, and dispense questionably useful advice to those in need of an ear. While hanging around a cafe run by Yoshine Kyoko and rambling about this and that, the brothers help unlock and resolve the concerns of their clients, as well as some of their own. Film director Yamashita Nobuhiro and hit screenwriter Nogi Akiko combine forces to produce a quirky, unhurried late-night comedy that casts a warm eye on humanity.

Kyouen NG
Break out the popcorn for some Japanese entertainment tea about what happens when a TV drama casts all the people who aren't supposed to be cast together: ex-lovers, former idol bandmates, a mentor and student who fell out, and a 2.5 dimensional actor and tokusatsu actor who don't see eye to eye. Nakai Kiichi and Suzuki Kyoka play middle-aged actors who broke up over two decades ago because of the former's cheating. Due to some behind-the-scenes strategizing by their managers, the two end up agreeing to co-star in a romantic drama about infidelity. Interestingly, this series is planned and conceptualized by AKB48 producer Akimoto Yasushi, but the more important name to note is One Hitoshi, who writes and directs with characteristic breeziness. Under One's direction, the six-episode series balances comedy, scandal and melodrama with a knowingly farcical touch and a nostalgic nod to old-school dramas.

MIU404

MIU404
Besides Kotaki Kyodai, screenwriter Nogi Akiko's other drama of 2020 is MIU404, and this is the crowd-pleaser that people expect from her. The police comedy-drama is a follow-up effort from the makers of Unnatural – with even a Yonezu Kenshi theme song and a UDI cameo to boot. Hoshino Gen and Ayano Go form the classic buddy cop team as the strait-laced thinker with a backstory and the unpredictable free spirit who runs on instinct, respectively. They're reluctantly partnered together in the newly formed Mobile Investigation Unit, which acts as first responders at a crime scene before passing on the case to other teams. This temporary underdog unit, however, ends up doing a lot of crime-chasing and case-solving on their own while driving around in a melon bread truck. With its fun concept, slick execution and strong cast that also includes Aso Kumiko and Okada Kenshi, not to mention Suda Masaki in a guest role, MIU404 checks all the boxes for primetime entertainment.

Off the Record
Yoshitaka Yuriko is Makabe Keito, the go-getting reporter of a weekly tabloid who relentlessly chases scoops and scandals. She's happy with her job and her boyfriend, and doesn't have much to complain about. After her mother suddenly passes away, the shocking truth of her father's identity comes to light. She herself becomes the target of the scoop, and both her work and her love life are affected by the fallout. Through it all, Keito tries to handle the changes with strength and grace, while maintaining her professional integrity and reassessing her lingering feelings for her now-married ex-boyfriend (Emoto Tasuku). Set in the bustling world of sensational news reporting, Off the Record moves at quick pace from one breaking story to another, but also takes the time to gradually unveil the different facets of a woman's inner world as she grows personally and professionally through doubts and setbacks, and takes control of her own decisions.

Unsung Cinderella
Ishihara Satomi is the Unsung Cinderella who gets you the right medicine for your illness and your worries in Fuji TV's drama about hospital pharmacists. Based on a manga by Arai Mamare, the medical series does stretch believability with a too-dedicated pharmacist who gets too involved in her patients' lives. However, the dramatic stories also reveal the interesting inner workings of hospital pharmacy and the important role that pharmacists play in a patient's treatment and recovery. We know the names of our doctors, but how many of us know the names of the pharmacists who fill the medicine prescriptions that will follow us for life? Ishihara is as effervescent as always as the positive and passionate pharmacist who wears her heart on her sleeve. Unsung Cinderella's requisite life lessons and moving moments resonate well, and the drama's best touch is the brief montage at the edge of each episode that provides snapshots of the patient's life thereafter for years to come.

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Published December 22, 2020

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